*HP ENVY 17 & 17 3D (2XXX series) Owners Lounge*

Thanks for your response. I can confirm that the driver is shown 13.0.0.107.

Strangely, after my latest post, the fourth time freeze on this driver version, after I booted it up a minute later the notebook never freeze up again until now. I'm trying to download everything as possible to use full bandwidth of my internet connection to see if it will freeze again. But, Hey, it's still running. If the freeze occurs again I have to try HP recovery then sending it to HP Service and it'll be a sad story for me.

Wish me luck this time.

 

Hey...thanks for the response. Just to clarify when you say "chipset" are you referring to something separate from the 6200 itself?

I thought there was just the intel wireless card and thats that. Sorry when it comes to wireless hardware I have no idea how it works. But from your post I'm getting that its possible to get a working intel 6200 so long as its paired with a good chipset?

 

Each company that makes routers uses different chipsets. To the best of my knowledge, Netgear, and Buffalo use Broadcom and D-Link and some others use Atheros. I believe that prior to being Cisco, Linksys also used Broadcom. There are a few major chipsets for wireless routers. Intel uses their own chipsets, and usually they are pretty compatible with every one, but there have been intermix issues with the 6200N and some certain brand routers...There are over 20 companies making routers and the chipsets are "standardized" for overall N, G and such. Funny thing was back when N was still non standard...there were issues with some N cards in laptops not even being able to connect to certain routers. Back when I first had my Dell Inspiron with the Dell N wireless card, I could not connect to Atheros at all. Had to be Broadcom. With N being standardized...this was not supposed to be an issue...yet the 6200N has "freeze" issues. Supposedly the older drivers solve that as well. It has to do with the "turbo boost" abilities of the cards. Also..don't forget the 6200N is dual band. I have a 2.4 GHZ router...and have no issues. Would be really interested to see if the 5 GHZ range setups work with issues or not...

 

Thanks Bobmitch for your explanation.

For the record, I have to report that there was another freeze after 24 hrs. of continuous downloading via wifi. It seems that the freeze was minimized with this driver not a real fix for me.

Maybe next step I have to use HP recovery to set it back to factory default once again and set wireless to G only mode to see the difference.

If anyone have any suggestion, I'll be really appreciated.
Thanks

 

Bobmitch,

Bobmitch,

15.2.20 downloaded from Synaptics does not seem to work for me. It says its not a known 32bit app?

 

Just got a 2090-nr model from microcenter... It blows my Envy 15 out of the water.

2 things I'm wondering.

Are there more than 2 memory slots?
Has anyone succesfully hackintoshed this laptop?

 

Whats up guys, still enjoying your Envy's?
Haven't posted here in a while, but I still stop by now and then to read up.

 

With luck I should be ordering my Envy 17 3D tomorrow. What do you guys recommend as far as memory goes? 8, 12, or 16? Since this is a laptop and I wanna play Starcraft 2 once in a while I wanted to get the 12 or even 16GB but I'm worried bout the price difference and whether it would just be overkill to get anything over 8GB.

And then apply that money towards an SSD. I'm planning on getting the Crucial m4 512GB SSD. Anyone have any guides as to how to place it in slot A and get everything working properly?

 

I have 8 in mine, and run 69 processes to the tune of 18% usage. I think that right now, 8 is more than enough. Should you want to upgrade later, the prices should go down. What HP charges right now...ouch! The SSD will certainly do you more benefit

 

ya same here i'm getting mine by UPS today any SSD tips its the 1.5 tera one 2 750 5400 HHD. ty in advance

 

8GB is more than enough. Otherwise skip 12GB and go directly to 16GB in order to take advantage of the dual channel memory bus.

Then again, if you are blowing serious dough on the 512GB SSD, 16GB should be easily in your price range!

 

Just had my HP 3D update the BIOS: and on restarting once in Win7 got a bizare message:
The Smart AC Adapter connected will power your computer, but potentially at a reduced performance level. Your computer is designed to vary performance as needed when a smaller capacity Smart AC Adapter is connected. Resource intensive tasks may cause your system not to perform at its highest level with a smaller capacity Smart AC Adapter. Please connect a higher capacity Smart AC Adapter for full performance.

HP offers awide range of smart adapter for your convenience...

WEll that sounds a sensible sort of message, except I've got the machine plugges into the mains, via the charger it came with. (and the battery was showing 100% charge), so what is going on ?
The brick feels beefy, and claims to be 120W. Any ideas ?

In having had this machine for a month or more, I've never seen this
message before. Bug ?

Also, anyone know what this BIOS update fixed, I didn't have a problem I knew about before....


Cheers everyone. Have a good weekend.

 

That message is quite common and expected when using a non-HP power supply. However, your cause for concern was that this occurred while using the original 120W brick included with the laptop.

It's possible the BIOS update changed something that triggered this. If it continues to happen, then you might have a problem. I'd suggest a reboot to see if the message comes back.

Otherwise, you can run a software mix to push the processor to max and monitor the core speed. If you pc runs at full speed and intel turbo boost kicks in, then the message is merely an annoyance. If your machine throttles, then it believes the laptop is not being supplied enough power and you might have a bad power brick (or something more serious, but lets hope not).

Good luck.

 

Hey Bassetwrangler, curious to know how the 6300 with third antenna is working out. If it's an improvement over the stock 6200 (when it doesnt freeze) I think I will do the same. Please update!

 

Do we guys have any serious review of the envy 17 sb with the full hd display? I want to swap my envy 14 radiance for it. How does it compare with the envy 17 full hd screen?

 

By full HD do you mean the 1080p right? I've had one since they came out and there is no equal outside the macbook line for it, good blacks and a nice even back light. Colors by default are pushing towards the cool side, but not something that can't be adjusted.

Really I have to say the Envy 17 SB has been the best PC I have ever had, I keep it closed using the HDMI port and a wireless keyboard and mouse during the day and then it travels on the road with me in the evenings to various job sites and has only locked up once on me (after our big fix bios update, unfortunately.) In the four and a half months I've owned it wear is mostly non-existent, my touch pad has always been a little high on one corner which is annoying, doesn't quite sit flush with the face of the palm rest, but that's just me getting picky on details.

Another detail: closing the PC and letting it beat around in my bag makes the keys show up on the glass, it just wipes off but unnerving when you open it and see an imprint of the keyboard on the screen.

 

The 3D panel is spec'd at 400-nit brightness while the 2D panel is 300-nit. that and the refresh rates are the essential differences, it appears to me. For the benefits in real situations, here are some thoughts:

1. the additional brightness might be important to you if you watch movies or game in brightly lit (I mean very brightly lit) venues (like outside or under very bright direct fluorescent lighting). other than that, normal indoor viewing there will be little benefit to the 400 nit display. I'm using a 300-nit 1080p display now and find it astonishingly bright, leading me to believe that 400 nits is helpful only in the 3D situation.

2. the refresh rate benefit is debatable in the non-3D situation. yea you can go higher than 60Hz and you might see some difference if you try to race cursors across the screen. but by and large, in the non-3D situation the higher refresh rate won't give you much to write home about. One rather amusing point to make is that 120Hz will cover both 24fps and 30fps native content without having to switch frame rates -- but this isn't a show stopper either, as the 60Hz screen can refresh at either 48Hz and 60Hz to cover those situations.

 

Thank you for the information walker5467. Do you have any links with reviews of the unit with the 1080p screen?

 

Alright! Here's what I got in the works....

YOUR CUSTOMIZED HP PC


Envy 17 3D
• Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
• No Additional Office Software
• 2nd generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2820QM (2.3 GHz, 8MB L3 Cache) with Turbo Boost up to 3.4 GHz
• 1GB GDDR5 Radeon(TM) HD 6850M Graphics [HDMI]
• 8GB 1333MHz DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
• 750GB 7200RPM Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection
• 6-Cell Lithium-Ion Battery (standard) - Up to 2.25 hours of battery life +++
• 17.3" diagonal Full HD HP 3D Ultra BrightView Infinity LED Display (1920x1080)
• Blu-ray player & SuperMulti DVD burner
• HP TrueVision HD Webcam
• Intel 802.11a/b/g/n WLAN and Bluetooth(R) with Wireless Display Support
• Backlit Keyboard with numeric keypad
• Adobe(R) Photoshop(R) Elements 9 & Adobe Premiere(R) Elements 9
• HP 3D Active Shutter Glasses
• HP Home & Home Office Store in-box envelope

GRAND TOTAL: $1,539.32

That's after 30% OFF and including taxes. In the end I honestly couldn't justify splurging on 16GB of memory like that.

However I DO fully intend to get an SSD. Anyone know of any great deals on reliable/good performing ones out there? And I mean an SSD that will truly display it's difference to the 7200 rpm hard disk drive I got. I need over 300GB of space. So ideally just 1 drive.

 

Well i've been lurking on the forums for awhile and I finally decided to go ahead and order my Envy! That 30% coupon really helped make it fall under my budget. The only question I had was in regards to the 300gb SSD, i'm not sure if it is the newest intel 2.5 drive or not!

HP ENVY 17 3D customizable Notebook PC
• 2nd generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2630QM (2.0 GHz, 6MB L3 Cache) with Turbo Boost up to 2.9 GHz
• 1GB GDDR5 Radeon(TM) HD 6850M Graphics [HDMI]
• 8GB 1333MHz DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
• 300GB (Solid State Drive Flash Module)
• 6-Cell Lithium-Ion Battery (standard)
• 17.3" diagonal Full HD HP 3D Ultra BrightView Infinity LED Display (1920x1080)
• Blu-ray player & SuperMulti DVD burner
• HP TrueVision HD Webcam
• Intel 802.11a/b/g/n WLAN and Bluetooth
• Backlit Keyboard with numeric keypad
• HP 3D Active Shutter Glasses

Grand total $1,603.25

Now it's time to play the waiting game, so excited!

 

Congrats on your new system!

Remember that the Envy 17 has capacity for two drives. So you can add a SSD and keep your 750GB for storage.

Here's a video I just made of my boot up time. I stopped the timer when the mouse pointer ended its "busy" status. 36 seconds. Powering apps like Outlook and Firefox is very fast, too.

HP Envy 17 Boot Time - YouTube

 

My request on this thread for suggestions on what software could be used to test throughput to my wireless modem went unanswered and I put research on the issue on the back burner. I've never had a functional problem with either the 6200 or the new 6300 but am still curious and will work a little harder to come up with a throughput methodology and, perhaps, post the results.

 

Even the lowly Intel (160GB flavor originally offered with the Envy) and todays 300GB will run circles around any 7200rpm HDD on the planet. In fact, the difference between a 7200 and the Intel SSD will be far greater than the difference between the Intel and the latest crucial/Kingson/OCZ products that show clear superiority in benchmarks.

And -- take another look at a two-drive set-up. the best configs in my view pair up a rotating 7200rpm drive with the SSD -- so you can move files around to optimize SSD life by minimizing writes that do not need the speed of the SSD. HDDs are cheep -- so keep that one as the secondary drive.

crucial, Kingston, and OCZ seem to be in the lead right now, but its a moving target with lots of "leap frogging" in the future, at least in my view. I dont' expect the little guys to live very long. soon it will be just the big boys and that will probably include Intel if they want to stay in there. The big time memory companies, though, names like Kingston, Crucial, Samsung and others, are the ones that supply the sillicon, so in time I expect to see those companies dominate in the race.

me I decided not to play the speed race game now, and ordered the little 160GB Intel SSD with my DV7. That way, its supported by HP for 2 years. By the time I require or at least substantially benefit from (or notice) the speed increase of today's competitors over the Intel, the landscape will be way different. and by "notice" I mean more than looking at benchmark numbers.

 

well, from my post a few days back: my SB 3d envy hasn't complained about my power adaptor once: so something funny happened when the BIOS was flashed, as a one off on reboot, of no consequence it would appear since.
Panic over !

 

3d content: I posted a request some weeks back, as to if anyone has any way of getting 3D content other than bluray discs, or 3D games for the 3d Envy... ? In particular I'm wondering if there is any "hack ware" that would allow one to watch youtube 3d content in 3d on these machines ?

I'm sure like everyone I am hungry for 3D content havin been titlilated by Google earth in 3D and the 2d-3d pseudo conversion by software from DVDs (which is surprisingly impressive, although ultimately flawed)... Any ideas ?

 

Hi all ,loving my HP 3d here ,whats the best way to install an SSD i hav the intel 510 ????. R can u point me in the right direction. ty in advance

 

Ok I know I keep on making accounts but who cares, I use throwaway emails and passwords for forums like these

1 month Envy review:

I've finally have had a month to play around with the Envy and here's the summary - starting with the negatives.

CONS:

1) The keyboard is cheap. It squeaks and I'm worried it will break if I use it for video gaming too much. I think I might need to get an external keyboard for gaming.

2) The USB ports are horribly placed. There should be a USB port for a mouse on the northeast corner next to the power port. There isn't, instead its placed on the southeast corner so if you stick in a mouse the cord will get in the way, if you stick in a peripheral like a USB thumb drive then it will get in the way. UGH. So I have to put the cord around the back of the laptop and use the esata port because the USB 3.0 port is powered even when the laptop is off.

3) Would much rather have a matte screen than a glossy screen.

4) It boots slower than my old Dell Inspiron. Too much junk and bloatware slowing this computer down. I'd format but I already put all my crap on there so I'm not going to bother.

5) Recovery discs should come standard. Now I have to get some DVDs and burn my own. Ugh

6) I don't like Beats Audio a lot. I feel like my old IDT sound was better.

7) The backlit keyboard bleeds. It makes the laptop feel cheaper, even though it still works, and backlit isn't even necessary b/c screen illuminates everything.

8) It gets hot. I don't care how it feels because it's fine but I care about my processor being in the 90s during gaming, worries me a bit.

Positives:

1) 120 hz screen is dope. If you game at all, or even just watch movies, it's about 999999x better than a 60 hz 8 ms screen which is what they usually give you. I'm going to be biased and say that once you get a 120 hz screen you will never ever go back because I will never ever buy another ing 60 hz screen cause 120 hz is so much smoohter and its just a much better experience and feels a lot better and god 60 hz screens suck

2) The speakers are pretty good. Subwoofer adds a nice touch, sound will fill a room and good for music.

3) Can't get a better deal for these specs. Right now there is a 30% coupon and I used this coupon before and it's straight up legit.

4) 6850m can do games pretty well. I like it.

5) I don't really care for the 3D but its OK I guess.

6) Nice packaging? Plus it comes with a cloth case for the laptop that's pretty cool

So overall it's a pretty good laptop and the price with a coupon is the best deal you'll find anywhere tbh.

 

My Envy 17 3D is in production. I originally ordered a DVT6 Quad but the build quality wasnt that great and the Envy was only $150 more so I boxed it up and shipped it back. Any starter guides to help new owners get started? And any good laptop bags/cases? Thanks.

 

Exact same situation here. Looking for a decent laptop sleeve. Had a 16" HP sleeve for the DV6T which I liked. Can't find any decent ones, doubt that the Macbook 17" sleeves fit.

BTW, where can I get the caddy, or whatever you call it, to hold a 2nd drive?

 

Okay the service manual shows only 2 slots, and nobody on the internets has apparently every hackintoshed this successfully.

I got a widi adapter and got it working with my 3d TV, a word to the wise though you must update it to the latest drivers and firmware to get it to play a blu ray and 3d content without exploding your envy.


I'm getting a BSOD when I have anything plugged into the left side of the computer. It has happened with the HDMI plugged in on the left side and also with both USB slots occupied on the left side. I can easily repeat the BSOD and it's really annoying.

Here is the BSOD signature

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: BlueScreen
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1033

Additional information about the problem:
BCCode: d1
BCP1: 0000000000000004
BCP2: 0000000000000002
BCP3: 0000000000000000
BCP4: FFFFF880066505BC
OS Version: 6_1_7601
Service Pack: 1_0
Product: 256_1


for the record I used my NFR ultimate 64 license to upgrade to 64 ultimate. Not that it should make any difference.

 

Turns out that BSOD had to do with an Intel wireless card driver. I reinstalled the most updated version per instructions from sevenforums and it hasn't done it again, we will see though.

 

They give you a decent sleeve with every Envy. If by sleeve you mean something to keep dust and scratches off, not something to protect drops or physical force.

 

does this have sata6gbs?

 

I've not been able to obtain any official answer on that topic, but as a practical matter I think folks have tested and obtained close to this figure with an SSD. fiver5? bobmitch?

 

Yes both hard drive ports are SATA 3.0 which is 6Gbit/s.

 

I read a lot of this thread where people were arguing about it but no ''official'' answer... Imma get a next gen SSD now. Sadly, it will probably blow away my x58 system with 3DDs in RAID0 using an intel controller

Thank you very much, repped. Can you point me to a link where this was discussed?

 

Here

 

That's really cute, but completely unhelpful. Considering most forum searches require 4 characters and sata is really common I was having a hard time finding anything more than discussion about 6gb of ram.

 

True, it is hard to search for this in this forum. This is what I found on the interwebs Help Vertex 3 (firmware 2.06) + HP Envy 17-2050 issue...

I know other have posted this same info on this forum but again it's hard to find specifically.

The limited HP bios makes it difficult to run in AHCI mode if it preconfigured for IDE but there is a fix Bobmitch posted for this a page or so back. I returned mine because the bluetooth wasnt working and replaced it with the 300gb Intel SSD which hopefully will come preconfigured in AHCI mode. Anyway regardless it will all be SATA III.

 

what's amusing is that still (at least in my experience) we have no specifications list or declaration from HP that Sata3 internals are provided on the Envy 17. officially I am told sata2, but as I say as a matter of practice it appears that the system supports greater xfer rates than 3GB/sec, and a general consensus that this must mean sata3 is supported. So -- other than discussions and related test results, has anyone really obtained word from HP that sata3 is supported, or are we still just relying on test results and implications that it must be so?

 

If you intend to do a system recovery using the HP discs...then AHCI should not be an issue. By default...HP wrote even single drives to run off the Intel Storage Manager drivers...

The machine is running off the RAID controller, even with single drive. BUT...just to be double safe, read the thread:

GUIDE - Enabling AHCI mode AFTER Windows 7 Installation - Guru3D.com Forums

that will assure you of better performance. I have the Intel X-25 and found a difference after changing the registry as well...

You can use the recovery discs and do a minimal recovery...which restores all the drivers but not the extra software. Also...doesn't preconfigure your MBR...so it should actually be easier.

Also...if you end up with the envy 17 3d...MAKE SURE to backup your SWSETUP directory and your TriDef directory, which contains the license to your 3D software...

 

Here's whats behind my question: The growing consensus that the Envy 17 supports internal SATA3 must be based on something. What is that something? On what basis do we say SATA3 is implimented? Is it because some have measured high data xfer rates, or have folks actually validated that the entire SATA3 standard is implimented? for example:

* has anyone validated that NCQ streaming command capabilities of SATA3 are present?
* Does the Envy have the new low-insertion force connector specified by SATA3?

 

First off...the Envy 17 3D uses the HM67 chipset. Most Pavillions and other brand machines are using the Q65. This is a bit more advanced...here are the specs:

Mobile Intel® HM67 Express Chipset

Most of the facts with the Envy 17 3D SB have come from early adopters of the machine who have already upgraded from HDD to SATA III SSD's. Not sure about the low force connector, but all SATA III adopters were able to achieve the rated speeds for their respective SSD's. If I recall...fiver5 was one who dove into the SATA III pool early and had great success. I have seen early issues with the Intel 320 series...but latter bios upgrades may have addressed that.

 

right -- so thats my point: I don't mean to be anal about this, but no one has validated SATA3 in the Envy 17 except to note that (1) the chipset supports it, and (2) the higher data xfer rates associated with SATA3 have been acheived. I acknowlege that this is compelling, but still there is no indication that the SATA3 spec is fully implimented and qualified by HP, or even that those higher data xfer rates are guarenteed by HP. In other words, if someone were not able to acheive 6Gb/sec, would HP help solve that problem? I doubt it. If HP had fully qualified SATA3 I suspect they would have made a big deal about such an accomplishment (and they wouldn't be shipping SATA2 SSDs with a SATA3 capable laptop!)

I've seen evidence that the HM65 chipset also supports SATA3 xfer rates, even though Intel's specsheets do not make that clear as they do for the HM67. For example, here is an OE CPU card that supports SATA3 using the HM65. I've even been told by HP support that the DV7 has implimented SATA3, but I haven't found any other evidence to support that.

in the end I suspect the real interest behind the question is about the data xfer rates themselves. I get that. and I acknowledge that emperical evidence is strong and that we have examples acheiving (at or near) 6Gb/sec in the Envy 17. I just think we should be careful not to say more than we know, because we might imply more than we should. For example, the Envy 17 might deliver 6Gb/sec without encorporating the new connector and thus would technically not support the SATA3 spec. Moreover, just because the chipset supports SATA3, and one can succesfully use a SATA3 SSD at high xfer rates doesn't mean the laptop has fully7 implimented the SATA3 spec either.

EDIT: HM65 is used on the DV6/7 now

 

If I may, I can offer a status update with my 6300 install. I've been using a 6200 with the old drivers for a little while and that seemed to solve my freezes. But since the 6300 was so cheap, I decided to give it a shot. Juts got it today and installed it with no hassle. Laptop boots up just fine. I installed the latest drivers for this card available on HP.com ( Intel Wireless Drivers, Intel PROSet, and Intel My WiFi for Microsoft Windows 7 HP ENVY 17t-2000 CTO 3D Edition Notebook PC - HP Customer Care (United States - English))

I also sprang for a cheap 3rd antenna and snaked it in the HDD bay. Right now I am transferring over 600GB of Itunes libabry over wifi between my desktop and the Envy and it has yet to freeze. Even better, the third antenna with my Linksys E3200 has this sucker SCREAMIN. It seems nearly as fast as a wired connection. At this point, my initial impression is that the issue is fixed and then some. Results may vary but the 6300 is a viable option to try.

As far as diagnostic software Basset, I don't think there is any way to simulate massive amount of net traffic aside from what I'm doing now. What I did was to setup a win 7 Homegroup and use Synctoy to setup a folder echo pair. The only way to test this seems to be actually transferring massive files, unless ou can find a torrent that can sustain full linespeed.

 

nice work devsfan1830 +1 .

 

I'm cloning my drive to a Vertex 3 120GB now... guess we will see here soon.

 

intel storage manager says it's running at 6gb/s, but only a 7.7 on WEI for disk drive. That is very disappointing.

 

Thanks for your sharing. For me, 6200 with driver v13 still gave me freezes even after recovered the system to factory state. I don't know why this is only happen to me. If I am in the same area and same country with you, and of course if you allow, I would borrow your 6200 to try. Because I curious that there is something wrong with my 6200, but I'm not so sure. I'd try everything myself to ensure that this is a hardware problem not a software before sending my Envy to HP Service.

Now I rollback driver to 14.0.1.2 (Default Driver), enable Intel My WiFi Technology and disabling power management to see whether it'll affect anything with the issue.

 

Have any of you Envy owners with SSD's chosen to turn off pagefile? There seems to be some controversy around this, so thought I'd point to some actual experimental work from Microsoft:

Support and Q&A for Solid-State Drives - Engineering Windows 7 - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

Basically, Microsoft is saying that in Windows 7, the nature of disk activity associated with the pagefile is precisely what SSDs are good at -- lots of small random reads and (by a factor of 40) considerably fewer but larger sequential writes. So -- other than to conserve space there appears to be no reason to disable pagefile or move it to the HDD. The way I see it, under normal use (especially with 6-8GB systems) the pagefile activity is light anyway, and under unusual cases when pagefile activity is high you will probably appreciate the performance benefit.

its a good read, backed up with some good research.